the-sheet.com Your Architecture Resource » Doctor Who

Readers’ cultural review of 2011: What, no Katy B?

The Sheet — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:28:13 +0000

Last week our critics picked their highlights of 2011. Did they get it right? Readers respond with their own highs (and lows)

MattB75

One Man, Two Guvnors was the most fun I've had in a theatre for years – easily the best play of 2011, and James Corden best performer. The National theatre largely misfired for me: A Woman Killed with Kindness, Cherry Orchard, 13, The Kitchen, Frankenstein and Greenland were all largely disappointing.

The RSC's Homecoming was the best revival. Rupert Goold's Merchant of Venice was great fun, even if the inconsistency in Portia's characterisation (from ditzy blond Glee fan to brilliant prosecutor, hm) took the edge off it.

Tom Brooke was my favourite actor of the year – in The Kitchen, and I Am the Wind.

oogin

Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid are still two of my least-admired starchitects. However, credit where it's due. I had the pleasure of wandering Toronto's AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario), redesigned by Gehry [a few years ago], and apart from his usual frivolous facade, the interior had been quite brilliantly done. So restrained and sophisticated: words I never never thought I'd use for the old showboater.

daveportivo

Katy B owned pop in 2011, or temporarily leased the lower sections of the charts from Adele at least. Seven singles off one album and a successful B-side, bridging the gap between cool, intriguing dance and charming, relatable 2000s-style British pop-star writing. Loved it.

Kleistphile

The programme of the year has been Mark Cousins' superb history of the cinema, The Story of Film: An Odyssey, on More4. Incredibly wide-ranging, informative and inspiring, with extremely intelligent analysis of how film developed and how the great directors innovated.

drdownunder

Artist Christian Marclay's awesome 24-hour film-montage The Clock, shown as part of the British Art Show in Plymouth. Mesmeric, fascinating, witty editing and marvellous film-buffery content.

SlimJim888

The Inbetweeners Movie. The snobs may scoff but this film says more about Britain and its youth than 20 Ken Loach films ever could.

OldFriar

Two of the greatest musical evenings were the appearances of the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Ivan Fischer in Mahler's First symphony, and the zany late-night Prom with audience requests including Bartók, Kodály and Stravinsky. A month before that, the magic combination of Andris Nelsons and the CBSO in Richard Strauss and Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky.

At the Royal Opera, the three most memorable performances were Madama Butterfly with Kristine Opolais in the title role and her husband Andris Nelsons in the pit; Werther with Sophie Koch and Rolando Villazón doing his best (still short of what Jonas Kaufmann can do); and the recent revival of Faust, with Vittorio Grigolo, René Pape, Angela Gheorghiu and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.

digit

The release by the BFI on DVD and Blu-Ray of Barney Platts-Mills's 1971 film Private Road, starring Bruce Robinson (who later wrote Withnail and I). I first saw this in about 1987 on TV and I've been wanting to see it again ever since. Even better than I thought.

Mark42

Gruff Rhys's Hotel Shampoo was my favourite album of the year; Cashier No 9 was not given the recognition it deserved. Enjoyed Kate Bush, Tinie Tempah, Noel Gallagher and Will Young's offerings, but very disappointed with Coldplay. Adele: lovely voice but too many songs sound the same on her album.

Still, it wasn't all bad: the end of Westlife and hopefully the beginning of the end for X Factor.

dbeecee

Right Here Right Now; Format international photography festival in Derby. Thousands of photographers took part from all over the world, including Joel Meyerowitz and Bruce Gilden. An exciting and eclectic mix showing the best in street photography.

davidabsalom

Best resurrection: Rab C Nesbitt. Comedy of the year for me. Now that the Tories are back in, he seems to have found his mojo again.

zibibbo

Leonardo da Vinci at the National Gallery. I think the major problem with this absurdly hyped show is that, apart from the two versions of the Virgin of the Rocks and the unfinished St Jerome, the other six "Leonardo" paintings on display are either too unattractively gauche, stiff and mannered to be considered good or significant. Or they're too implausibly naturalistic to be an autograph work (La Belle Ferronière is too lifelike to be by Leonardo). Or just too plain weird and damaged to take seriously (step forward, the newly discovered Salvator Mundi).

Thank you, Adrian Searle, for having the integrity to give your honest opinion about this insanely promoted but hugely disappointing show.

andglove

The High Country, an album by Portland band Richmond Fontaine, demands your attention from first song to last. It's one of the only albums that will give you the same sense of satisfaction that finishing a novel does.

LDTBFJ

Bridesmaids was a great and genuinely funny film. Comedies (and female comedians) are too frequently dismissed, especially by the Oscars board.

Snarlygog

British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet in Plymouth. It was good to see [Christian Marclay's] The Clock and Sarah Lucas's work up close and personal. At least there is an emphasis on craft skills in video art: good focus, framing and timing are back in fashion.

alphabetbands

Nicola Roberts, the good one from Girls Aloud. In her album Cinderella's Eyes she lays out her inner demons and anguish on a platter of sumptuous dance pop hooks and beats. The album is so simple that my two-year-old can sing along, and layered enough that we slightly elder statesmen can appreciate it as well.

juliendonkeyboy

In no particular order: Sufjan Stevens live at Southbank: ambitious, experimental, joyous, exciting, sad. Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle: the sixth episode, Democracy, was quite simply awesome. Senna is my film pick: made in 2010, but didn't get released on these shores until 2011. Wonderfully moving.

habsfan0303

Propeller's Comedy of Errors was riotous. I mean, how often does a naked grown man run past you with a sparkler wedged into his buttocks?

glynluke

Archipelago is the worst film I have ever seen in 50-odd years of cinema-going. How Peter Bradshaw and Philip French can find a single redeeming quality in this dreadful two-hour river of bathetic, emotionless, drama-free drivel baffles me.

Shatillion

I loved Attack the Block. I got mugged the week before it was released and actually found watching it quite cathartic. I was rooting for the little shits by the end. That's good screenwriting.

JimTheFish

A really disappointing year for British TV, which has been on a downward slide. Doctor Who was probably still the best thing domestically. The Crimson Petal and the White and The Hour were underwhelming misfires; The Shadow Line was about the only really promising new kid on the block.

The basic problem is that there's just not enough TV drama being produced. We need more one-offs, more Plays for Today to allow TV to find new voices and take more chances. Everything seems to be market-researched and focus-grouped into mediocrity.

LocalBird

We went to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park this summer and were blown away by the incredible Jaume Plensa exhibition; the alabaster heads took my breath away. Beautiful, mesmerising and enchanting.

Carefree

Memorable plays: Flare Path, Frankenstein (Jonny Lee Miller as the Creature was brilliant), and Much Ado at the Globe (Eve Best and Charles Edwards were good enough to almost match my memories of Janet McTeer and Mark Rylance as Beatrice and Benedick).

Damper squibs were Chicken Soup with Barley (far too long). Conor Macpherson's The Veil at the National started brilliantly but didn't deliver the beautiful, haunting, elegiac power of The Weir – a great shame.

Alarming

There were aspects of Grayson Perry's Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman that drove me round the bend. But he wrote well about his theme and chose some absolutely lovely objects from the British Museum's collection.

uptomost

85A collective from Glasgow's brilliant mechanical opera Idimov and the Dancing Girl at the Secret Garden Party. Spooky, funny, ingenious.

AdminGuru

The Tree of Life: a vast expansive film with multiple interpretations, and little in the way of film convention for the casual viewer to latch on to. Viewers fall into two camps I think: those who want simply to be entertained and led, and those who want to explore and participate. Tree of Life is about participation.

Wrighthanes

I just couldn't get The Tree of Life. I tried. I wanted to like it. Admittedly I was on a Singapore Airlines flight, which is not the ideal way to appreciate its cinematic beauty.

DeunanKnute

The Tree of Life is quite possibly the most overrated movie of all time. The sheer brilliance of every single actor isn't in dispute, nor is the superb cinematography. The movie itself is the problem, because it's a real clunker. It's also one of the few films I've seen at the cinema where people were either (vociferously) walking out in disgust or staying behind just to boo.

GorillaPie

The [designs for the] new US Embassy in London. I realise these buildings have to be more fortresses than offices, but really. I'm disappointed that such an important new commission isn't going to be more iconic. Especially since I live opposite the site.

Gundmundsdottir

Possibly the biggest disappointment was the final track on Bon Iver's second album: it never fails to surprise me with just how cheesy and plain bad it is.

CurlyScot

Some of my favourite moments have been in otherwise unremarkable shows. I was slowly won over by Susan Hiller at Tate Modern, and Nancy Spero's works Azur and Hours of the Night II [at the Serpentine] were so incredible I forgot all the meh stuff that surrounded them. The only exhibition I have been unreservedly knocked over by was Mike Nelson's Coral Reef at Tate Britain – an old piece so I'm not sure it counts. Not a superlative year; let's hope 2012 is better and isn't overwhelmed by a spurious Cultural Olympiad.

This week’s arts diary

The Sheet — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:05:25 +0000

Two new Doctor Whos and a Dennis Potter are found; a Dutch architecture firm show Clouded judgment in their design for twin towers; and does Britain need a new capital?

Two new Whos and a Potter

Archive television fans gathered on London's South Bank last Sunday to witness the BFI's annual showcase of newly discovered shows that had been thought lost, or "wiped". The big news was the announcement of two Doctor Who episodes. More interesting, I thought, was an early TV play by Dennis Potter.

Emergency Ward 9 was broadcast in 1966 as part of BBC2's live Thirty-Minute Theatre series. A riposte to ITV's soap opera Emergency – Ward 10, Potter's play is set in a shabby London hospital ward and centres on the patients: an opinionated old man; a prissy preacher; a cocky businessman. The latter is black, and the casual racism he suffers forms the crux of the play. In 2011, it is shocking to hear the racist language.

The show's producer, Kenith Trodd, told the Diary the play did not feel particularly controversial at the time. "Seeing it now, I was totally amazed by the distance we've come," he said. Of course, it was first broadcast in the 1960s, when millions tuned in to laugh at the racist/sexist/homophobic rantings of Alf Garnett, though Trodd added: "I don't think there was much in that era that was quite as in-your-face as Dennis was in that piece."

The discovery of the missing Doctor Whos means there are now – shamefully – 106 considered lost, rather than 108. The BFI screened The Underwater Menace episode from 1967, with Patrick Troughton as the Doctor and people from Atlantis (incredibly hairy eyebrows, plastic tube headdresses). There were also entertaining adverts, featuring Frank Mumford puppets desperate for VB sweet wine and State Express 555 cigarettes; and a very funny Pete and Dud sketch.

But it was the Potter that stuck. Watching it, I yearned for the return of one-off TV plays. Sky Arts' Playhouse series shows it can be done: why not ITV and the BBC?

Clouded judgment

Those crazy architects, part one. The Dutch firm MVRDV has submitted designs for a pair of towers it plans to build in Seoul4, South Korea, by 2015. Called The Cloud, the towers appear to be exploding in the middle, which has caused offence in the US. On its website, MVRDV issued the following statement: "MVRDV regrets deeply any connotations The Cloud project evokes regarding 9/11. It was not our intention to create an image resembling the attacks nor did we see the resemblance during the design process."

A new capital for Britain?

Those crazy architects, part two. One hundred years ago this week, King George V announced that the Indian capital would be moved from Calcutta to Delhi. In the latest issue of Architectural Review, architect James Dunnett argues it is time to consider moving Britain's capital from London to, er, West Bromwich. It is an interesting essay that can be best summarised by using a direct quote from Dunnett himself: "I have never been to West Bromwich."

Mark Brown

Notes and queries: Why is Doctor Who always a Time Lord and not a Lady?

The Sheet — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:55:35 +0000

Why is Doctor Who always a Time Lord and not a Lady? Journeys to the centre of the Earth; The meaning of a hiding to nothing

Why is Doctor Who always regenerated as a Time Lord, not a Time Lady?

In Doctor Who the process of regeneration is the renewing of every cell in a Time Lord's dying, damaged or unwanted body. Since Time Lords (and Time Ladies, and perhaps even Time Tots, as the children of Gallifrey are known) can change species when they regenerate, there is presumably no reason why they can't also swap sex. There's certainly nothing in the TV series' history to contradict this theory and indeed no way of telling whether the Master, the Doctor's sworn enemy, spent one or more of his 13 wasted lives as a femme fatale called the Mistress.

Kieran Grant, London N22

Time Lords can be male or female. One of Tom Baker's companions was actually a female Time Lord called Romana who regenerated between seasons and I also understand that one of his recurring enemies was another female of the species called The Rani.

Apparently, the only way a Time Lord can regenerate as a member of the opposite sex is to commit suicide. This has happened at least once to my knowledge, in a Doctor Who Unbound audiobook called Exile, where he commits suicide and becomes Arabella Weir in order to hide from pursuers.

Guy Thomas, Canterbury

Why the Doctor has never managed to exchange his Y chromosome for a second X is one of the universe's great unsolved mysteries. Had he managed to do so, we might have been fortunate enough to experience the doctorly delights of the likes of Honor Blackman, Judi Dench, Sheila Hancock, Maggie Smith or Kathy Burke. Whatever the reasons for such rigid gender typecasting, lack of available talent isn't one of them.

Sheila Kirby, Esbjerg V, Denmark

The world's tallest building is the 828m Burj Dubai, but what is the world's deepest man-made structure?

Various mines and deep geological repositories for nuclear waste approach one kilometre. At 24.5km, Norway's Laerdal tunnel is the longest road tunnel in the world, and also up to 1400 metres deep. However, the record for the deepest hole is held by the Russians, who started drilling the Kola Superdeep Borehole in 1970 and reached the depth of 12,261 metres in 1989. The purpose of this hole is to study the continental crust. However, this represents only about 0.2% of the journey to the centre of the Earth.

In a tongue-in-cheek paper published in the science journal Nature, David Stevenson, professor of planetary science at Caltech, explains how a grapefruit-sized unmanned probe could reach the centre of the earth in a week or so. The first step would be to detonate a nuclear bomb to generate a crack in the Earth's crust 30cm wide and several hundred metres long and deep. Molten iron containing the probe would need to be poured into the crack the instant it formed. Being denser, the iron would sink, which would lead to the release of gravitational potential energy, melting the underlying rock. Once the glob of iron had passed, the rock would close up again. Data would be sent to the surface as vibrations. But the £6.5bn price tag means it will not be happening any time soon.

Mike Follows, Willenhall, W Midlands

"A hiding to nothing" – I know what it implies but it doesn't make sense. Can anyone explain?

It refers to a situation where one has everything to lose and nothing to gain. It is used (often in football) to describe a contest against supposedly inferior opposition where winning would be expected and produce little credit, while losing would be a calamity. The hiding refers not so much to the other team's performance but to the public outcry and humiliation.

The meaning of "hiding" is from the association of corporal punishment with the tanning of skins. Hence, "I'll tan your hide" and "give you a good hiding". So winning the uneven contest would be "nothing", while losing would be a "hiding".

Martin Skinner, Leamington Spa, Warks

Why are there no female Formula One drivers?

Due to their ancestors' roles as (respectively) hunters and nurturers, men's and women's brains evolved different pathways to help them make decisions. Women specialised in more nuanced, longer-term decisions, while men learned how to make good instant decisions. It's a bit of a generalisation, and there are obviously exceptions – the female Red Arrow, for instance, and the men who work in caring professions – but together with their numerical advantage, it explains why men become (and want to become) racing drivers and fighter pilots.

Nick Marsh, Sutton-at-Hone, Kent

Any answers

In folklore werewolves look like real wolves. That's the whole point – you don't know which is real and which is supernatural until it's too late. So why in films and TV do they look like very hairy people?

Susan Deal, Sheffield

What is the origin of the mortarboard as an item of academic dress? Why is it worn by graduates at some universities but not at others?

Lilian Dunlop, Manchester

Send questions and answers to nq@guardian.co.uk. Please include name, address and phone number.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds